


Who Am I?

by Akinasky



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Demisexual Character, Demisexual Derek Hale, Derek Trying to Figure Out Who He Is, Established Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Established Relationship, M/M, Stiles Stilinki Is a Good Boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-10
Packaged: 2019-10-25 14:43:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17727173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Akinasky/pseuds/Akinasky
Summary: Derek wonders a lot about himself. He goes looking for the answers.





	Who Am I?

**Author's Note:**

> This is my more serious addition to the 4Year Anniversary Challenge, "A Sense of being Normal being Discovered"

It seemed like Derek only started to get to know himself after he started dating Stiles. After the Nogitsune did its best to destroy the seemingly strong human. He’d watched Stiles go up against Alphas and werewolves and Oni and everything only to watch him shake apart over and over again from the desk chair in the teenager’s room because Stiles didn’t want to be alone and he couldn’t take the chance of his dad finding him gone.

Not after the Nogitsune tried to make the Sheriff kill his own son.

They healed a little at a time, together and apart. Then Derek was kidnapped and Stiles basically gave up everything to get him back. Stiles kissed him for the first time after that.

They’d kissed a lot since then but not much else and it wasn’t like Stiles wasn’t interested but Derek figured out the hard way that he didn’t want to just climb into bed with Stiles. Well he did but it was difficult to actually follow through for a couple reasons.

He’d been raped by Kate Argent and magically screwed over by Jennifer Black or Julia or whatever her name is. He learned about that little mind fuck right before she was killed and hadn’t known how to deal with it.

Derek also had never been with a man before and neither had Stiles, they were both willing to take things slowly.

But also, Derek didn’t really know if he wanted to have sex, he cared deeply about Stiles and wanted to be close to him. They kissed and held each other, they talked about their lives and futures. That they wanted a future together.

Stiles even ‘introduced’ Derek to his father.

Sex though, that wasn’t something he really wanted to get involved in.

Of course, when he told Stiles about it, the teenager immediately went to the internet and started doing research. A couple minutes later, Derek had a stack of papers to go through, everything from trauma therapies and how what happened to him could have affected the way he felt about sex and even his own body and then there was information about sexuality that he immediately sat down with.

He’d never considered what happened with Jennifer and Kate as a separate thing from how he felt about sex. What Kate did, how he felt about her, that was because she controlled him. She wanted sex and she took it whenever she wanted, and he didn’t know anything else. If he said no, she cajoled and manipulated him to feeling poorly about himself until he gave in and then she would blame him for being lackluster.

Jennifer, he didn’t really remember anything they did and when he came out of the magical stupor, she placed him in, Derek puked for days. He hid away from the betas and everyone, including Stiles and they all assumed that it was because Kali forced him to hurt Boyd. Thankfully, Derek found a way to keep the teenager alive and Erica was there to comfort Boyd and Isaac while Cora snarled and snarked at Stiles.

Derek puked and puked, everything he ate and drank it just came back up at the thought.

So clearly he was fucked in the head about what happened to him and he was fucked about his body but maybe, just maybe, that didn’t have anything to do with not wanting to have sex a lot.

He hated that his body brought him attention and the only reason Stiles really snuck under the surface was because despite his attraction to Derek’s form, he never talked about it. Not really. He told Derek that he loved that he was a book nerd. Stiles told Derek that he loved him for the care he put into the betas. He told Derek a hundred things that Stiles loved about Derek that had nothing to do with his trim figure and handsome face.

Derek’s not stupid, he knows how attractive he is; he just hates it.

The words he comes across in the papers that Stiles gave him; asexual, demisexual, pansexual and so much more. It seemed like sexuality was a much larger thing than he ever imagined so a week after Stiles gave him all the papers, he sat down in front of Stiles’s laptop while the teenager was napping. He didn’t think that Stiles would make fun of him or anything but he thought maybe he wanted to figure this out for himself.

He started with quizzes to determine what exactly he may be, then he went searching for chat rooms. It didn’t take long to figure out that we was going to have to be on a social media platform to find some people to talk to. He hated social media and everything it entailed.

Derek grumbled as he made an email and then a Facebook profile under the name ‘Der Halinski’ because he was a nerd who was in love with Stiles Stilinski and shoving their names together was kind of fun. Like the 21st century version of doodling their names on a notebook.

He didn’t add any friends, including Stiles, and immediately started searching for groups about Demisexual individuals. He found a couple and started making posts, asking questions and seeking help which he so desperately needed and was terrified to really ask for in the real world.

There was one group where people were constantly talking about other life stuff as well and it settled him in a weird way, like they were all still normal even though this thing about him was so different. He talked with a couple members about favorite classics and about two weeks later, he had three friends on his Facebook page, not that he really looked at their posts. It just made them easier to chat with on the PM service.

After three weeks, he had to admit that he was going to need to either a smart phone or a laptop. He asked Stiles to help him pick something out and the younger man almost fainted from the excitement. Derek smiled and drove them to the mall where they picked out a laptop and Stiles talked him into a cellphone. Derek let him program his number into the new phone and then loaded a bunch of apps for Derek to use. They got back to the loft and set up his laptop to the happy sound of Stiles dancing around and singing. Derek just smiled and logged onto Facebook while Stiles flopped down on the couch. He messaged with his friends, turning off the notification sounds while Stiles worked on something on his own computer for a little while.

“So what was with the desperate need for a laptop and an upgraded phone anyway?” Stiles asked after about fifteen minutes of silence between them. It was longer than Derek was expecting.

“I needed to do some more research, about that stuff that you gave me.”

Stiles looked up at him, “I could have helped you.”

Derek shook his head, “I think I needed to do it on my own and I am learning a lot. I just need to tell you again that I am so glad you handed me all that paperwork to begin with. I figured I would have just pretended everything was fine and kept doing things I didn’t really like.”

Stiles flushed and looked back down at the laptop in front of him, “Sure. Is there anything you wanted to talk about?”

Derek closed the laptop and walked over to sit down next to Stiles. He took a deep breath and started, “I didn’t really know this about myself but I don’t really feel comfortable with having sex right now. I love you, I deeply and stupidly love you but the idea of sex right now fills me with a sense of dread and being honest with you about it makes me scared.”

Stiles reached over and took Derek’s hand, “That’s okay with me. I love you and the idea of you doing something you don’t want to do for my sake isn’t what I wanted. Do you enjoy kissing me?”

Derek leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to Stiles’s lips and smiled, “It might be one of my favorite things.”

Stiles grinned back, “That’s good. So we can just talk about what we are comfortable with and go from there. You know I love to talk,” he finishes with a wink.

Derek rolled his eyes, “You and I both know that you talk all the time to _not talk_ about the real stuff.”

“Not with you,” Stiles said solemnly.

Derek smiled softly, leaning in for another kiss, “Thank you for that. I’m glad I can talk to you.”

Stiles grinned, wide and powerfully bright and beloved. Derek squeezed Stiles’s hand and pointed to the pile of movies, “You wanna watch something?”

Stiles popped up and shuffled through the movies and picked some Disney movie and they settled down together. That evening after he settled Stiles down on their bed he signed onto the Demisexual group and started a new post:

 

_‘I told my boyfriend today that I wasn’t interested in sex and he was accepting of it, I am so thankful to this group because it was because of you that I was able to take that chance with him. I am planning on getting some help with the sexual assault stuff but thank you again.’_

After hitting post, he turned off the computer and went to join his boyfriend in bed, feeling more normal than he ever had in his entire life. Who knew that just knowing an identifying term outside of werewolf could be so comforting.


End file.
